I enjoy watching Factory Made. I have always been keen in understanding and knowing the effort behind creation of products I use. They fascinate me. I got a chance to understand similar creation of a product at OLE Nepal. It was to test 53 boxes of newly arrived XO-4 laptops.

It all started with an email about arrival of laptops from Mr. Upaya, our finance director at OLE Nepal stating “We are expecting 53 boxes of XO-4 laptops to be delivered probably today.” All the interns were invited to check external damage in XOs as well as to store them in a safe place. I found this to be a great activity in my learning process and skill development as an intern. Also, it gave me chance to know the laptops inside out.

Exploring the product such as XO laptop was an extraordinary duty, for we do not easily get this opportunity. We interns got to delve into this system and prepare them for the Bajhang deployment. I feel content to realize our contribution in this process, giving students an access to digital educational resources. Saugat, Sawal and myself were assigned to test XOs’ basic hardware and update operation systems. Checking 53 boxes of XO laptops seemed never ending, but eventually it became interesting for us. Initially, we divided our work. Me and Sawal decided to unpack the boxes and test the laptops while Saugat primarily checked the charging ports of laptops along with its charger and cable. As a result of our team effort, the boxes that once seemed never ending were being tested and packed in no time.

“Damn” shouted Saugat grabbing our attention, “I just got an electric shock.” It was the first defect detected during our testing process. This event broke the silence in the room and we started talking about childhood mishaps with electricity. I did not have any similar story to share but was listening to their stories with great interest.

After one and half days of work, we completed checking 31 boxes of laptops leaving only 22 boxes of XOs. This time around, we could not resist but to take it easy. Sawal discovered a print mistake in keyboard. MAYOS. We figured the word was Shift in Spanish. There is a saying “If you find two mistakes in a row, you are likely to find the third one.” Continuing our last few boxes, I finally got my share of errors. It was a non functional screen rotate key. Therefore, all faulty machines were separated in a box and we gradually ended our testing activity.

Apart from checking the defects in the laptops, we also upgraded the operating system of the XOs for deployment. After the upgrade, operating system now provides Nepali interface along with E-paath and other necessary activities in the laptops. Initially, we interns were upgrading the XOs and eventually new volunteers for Bajhang also assisted us making it a good team effort. With helping hands, we successfully updated operating system of 260 laptops in one and half day, fully preparing the XOs for deployment.

Now these XOs are on their way to the schools and I cannot wait and see students using these laptops in my next visit to Bajhang.